An early birthday party and getting the balance right as parents

Since Hannah would not be in China in a few weeks for her actual birthday, we needed to have a birthday party (and kind of a leaving party) for her close friends.

We opted not to go for the outside option (previously we had done this before at playgrounds/with cooking and a popular option nowadays is trampolining) and instead go again with the at-home option: a very traditional party with a theme (the film" Frozen"), games (from "musical statues" to "treasure hunt" to "pass the parcel"), a cake made by the birthday girl's mother and so on. The parents were happy to ditch their kids for a few hours. We struggled to keep tensions from boiling over and an eye on everything, but it was a success.

I had a very careful balancing act with timing the music for "pass the parcel" to ensure everyone got something and to manage expectations for all those who did not actually win the final prize (which was then shared with everyone else anyway) and Andrea and I had a similar challenge with the "treasure hunt" outside (where we did some of the games).

The kids made pizza and caused lots of chaos: it was a fairly stressful 3 hours but they all enjoyed it which was the aim, of course. Except for Hannah who enjoyed some of it, but had a massive breakdown during some of the games. First when her ball didn't go in the circle in her early attempts and she was told to go to the back of the line and wait her turn to try again (yet some of her other friends got the ball in the circle earlier than her), and then during the treasure hunt when she had trouble accepting she could not be the first person to find every single "treasure". In fact such a possibility was hinted at in the babycenter.com weekly newsletter about birthday parties!

Just as predicted, Hannah had been very excited for several days (several times each day asking how many more days until her party), was also a little stressed, and was keen to be the center of attention. Hannah has always liked to be the "leader" and "number 1" - which she often is, with a younger sister who looks up to her - and we like to encourage her to be proactive and approach other friends and so on, but we do also have trouble striking a balance in saying it is ok not to always win, for others to win, and for you still to be happy. Clearly we still have some work to do! I think it will help when she moves school. We'll still want her to be extrovert of course and to make new friends, but in a school with more European kids of her size and more extrovert personality (many Chinese kids, especially girls, are quite introvert) she will have to adapt. She has done so before when playing with older kids in other environments, so I'm sure she'll be fine.

It is a tricky balance: supporting a child to grow according to their personality and what is needed to be successful and happy - a balance between extroversion and introversion; leadership and teamwork; strong willingness and compassion and so on. Of course everyone has their own personality, but we all need to adapt based on context and environment to some extent.

Another difficult balance to strike is around spoiling children. We don't think we spoil our kids. They have a nice life, and they have most things. We let them have fun but they don't always get what they want (such as ice cream every day, a little electric sit-in car, roller blades that will only be used once, limits on fair ground rides and so on). Certainly we try to ensure we get what we want and that our kids listen to us, but it's not always easy (especially when children are tired)... lots of compromise and another balance: between rewards, punishments, and trying not to always have to use rewards or punishments as a motivational tool! We think it's ok so far but we continue to learn as parents.

Having said all that, giving Hannah three parties (of a sort) in China, England and Germany won't help!